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This study examined whether Big Five personality traits associated with the ability to exhibit self-control would moderate the anger–aggression link. A total of 126 participants (63 women) completed personality measures. In a separate experimental session, participants wrote an essay and then received either positive or negative feedback from a fictitious participant. Participants were given the opportunity to aggress against the supposed other person. Baseline and post-experimental emotions were assessed. EEG was recorded to measure activity in midfrontal, lateral-frontal, and parietal areas. Results replicated previous findings that anger is associated with left relative to right prefrontal asymmetry and aggression. Conscientiousness was negatively associated with anger and relative left prefrontal asymmetry. Conscientiousness also moderated the link between anger and aggression. Agreeableness was positively associated with anger, but only when levels of conscientiousness were low.

In every society, self-control is important for getting along with others. It has even been suggested that the overarching purpose of self-control in humans is inherently social in nature (Barkley, 2001). A person who cannot control his or her thoughts, feelings, or behaviors is more likely to lash out in anger when frustrated, handle conflicts less constructively, and engage in antisocial behavior (Baumeister & Vohs, 2004). Even nonaggressive children who have attentional problems often have difficulty giving situationally appropriate responses and have difficulty modulating their behavior to meet the social demands of the situation (Landau & Milich, 1988). Conversely, individuals who are able to control their behaviors should receive numerous benefits from their social relations within the group such as belongingness, peer acceptance, higher quality relationships, and even protection from victimization (Jensen-Campbell & Malcolm, 2004; Vohs & Ciarocco, 2004). Research has indeed found associations between attentional processes, emotion-related regulation, and social behavior. For example, preschoolers’ attentional control was associated with constructive anger reactions (Eisenberg, Fabes, Nyman, Bernzweig, & Pinuelas, 1994). Additionally, Eisenberg et al. (1995) found that high attentional control in elementary school boys predicted socially appropriate behavior. Teacher and parent reports of behavioral regulation were also associated with lower levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior. Similarly, Belsky, Friedman, and Hsieh (2001) found that early attentional control moderates the association between negative emotionality and social competence. The purpose of this study was to examine whether Big Five personality dimensions associated with self-control, namely agreeableness and conscientiousness, influence emotional and behavioral responses when individuals were confronted with a frustrating interpersonal situation. If frustration is a major instigator of aggression (Berkowitz, 1968), an important mechanism that inhibits aggressive behavior may be the ability to exhibit self-control in frustrating situations. Many studies have found that anger is often directly associated with aggression when other defensive motivations are absent (e.g., Berkowitz, 1993; Richardson et al., 1998). For example, Harmon-Jones and Sigelman (2001) have found that relative left prefrontal cortical activity is associated with state-induced anger, which in turn predicted offensive aggression. Previous research has focused primarily on “main effect” models of anger and aggression (Anderson and Bushman, 2002 and Anderson and Carnagey, 2004). Interactive models, on the other hand, allow for the exploration of moderator or “buffer” variables that influence these associations. We were specifically interested in whether conscientiousness and agreeableness moderated the contributions of anger to aggression. Individuals who have the ability to effortfully shift and focus their attention may be less likely to aggress when angered than individuals who have less self-control. In other words, the behavioral and cognitive control capacities associated with conscientiousness and agreeableness may aid in weakening the anger–aggression link. Agreeable and conscientious individuals may be better able to suppress the dominant or prepotent response to be angry and offensively aggressive when involved in a frustrating situation. 1.1. Self-control and personality Rothbart and Bates (1998) and Rothbart and Posner (1985) suggest that self-regulation, also termed effortful control (EC), involves constitutionally based executive control processes that regulate behavior reactivity (e.g., emotionality). Early appearing individual differences in the ability to sustain and shift attention as well as the ability to initiate and inhibit actions voluntarily have been associated with EC. Effortful control has been further associated with the ability to suppress a dominant or prepotent behavior (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000) or even another opposing dominant response that would better maintain subjective well being (Larsen & Prizmic, 2004). Overall, self-control should allow individuals to resist the immediate influences of the situation; individuals higher on self-control should be able to control their emotional affect (e.g., anger), avoid lashing out in situations that are frustrating, or even approach frightful situations when necessary. A developmental connection between early appearing self-control processes and later personality processes has been documented in numerous studies. Rothbart, Chew, and Gartstein (2001) have found that conscientiousness is highly correlated with the adult temperamental factor of effortful attention. Ahadi and Rothbart (1994) note that conscientiousness is composed of numerous characteristics associated with self-regulation. For example, both conscientiousness and self-regulation are characterized by the ability to effortfully direct one’s attention, the ability to inhibit certain behaviors to execute alternate behaviors, and the ability to persist in tasks. Conscientiousness has also been related to a broad band of performance standards, including elementary school grades (e.g., Digman & Inouye, 1986), middle school grades (Jensen-Campbell, 2006), performance at work and industrial settings (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991), driving accident involvement (Arthur & Graziano, 1996), prosocial behavior (Abe, 2005), and even success in interpersonal relationships (Jensen-Campbell & Malcolm, 2006). Furthermore, people high in conscientiousness are able to persist at a tedious task for a longer duration than people lower in conscientiousness (Sansone, Wiebe, & Morgan, 1999). Agreeableness has also been linked to effortful control (Ahadi & Rothbart, 1994). It has been suggested that agreeableness is motivational in maintaining positive relationships with others. Indeed, it is believed that inhibitory processes are needed to control selfish, disagreeable tendencies in group situations. For example, Havill, Besevegis, and Mouroussaski (1998) define agreeableness as the ability to inhibit disagreeable tendencies. Compared to their peers, high agreeable individuals do indeed respond to interpersonal conflict more constructively ( Graziano et al., 1996 and Jensen-Campbell et al., 1996), cooperate more productively during interdependent group tasks ( Graziano, Hair, & Finch, 1997) and are described by their parents has exhibiting more competent social skills ( Jensen-Campbell, 2006). Direct links between agreeableness and effortful control processes have also been found. For example, agreeableness is predictive of efforts to control one’s emotions in both adults and children (Tobin and Graziano, 2006 and Tobin et al., 2000). In addition, Jensen-Campbell et al. (2002) found that agreeableness uniquely predicts Stroop performance, which is believed to be a measure of executive control ability. Finally, agreeableness has been linked with orienting sensitivity, which is related with associative sensitivity as well as sensitivity to internal, affective, and external perception (Rothbart et al., 2001). Recent research has found that both agreeableness and conscientiousness were associated with resistance to temptation in early adolescence (Jensen-Campbell & Graziano, 2005). Specifically, Jensen-Campbell and Graziano found that in situations with mixed messages about cheating, high conscientious children were less likely to cheat than were children low in conscientiousness. In addition, they found that when cheating was clearly conveyed to be “wrong,” children high in teacher-rated agreeableness cheated less than children low on teacher-rated agreeableness did. Finally, adolescents who were low in both agreeableness and conscientiousness were the most likely to cheat (see Fig. 1, Jensen-Campbell & Graziano, 2005). In addition, both agreeableness and conscientiousness have been associated with traditional clinical assessments associated with poor regulation, namely attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It should be noted that ADHD is believed to be a disorder that involves poor inhibitory control (Barkley, 2001). Using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), parents report greater attention problems and more behaviors associated with ADHD for children who were low on agreeableness and conscientiousness (Jensen-Campbell, 2006). Similarly, Nigg, Blaskey, Huang-Pollock, and Rappley (2002) found that both conscientiousness and agreeableness were differentially associated with ADHD symptom clusters. For instance, conscientiousness predicted inattention-disorganization, whereas agreeableness was associated with hyperactivity-impulsivity and oppositional defiant behaviors. 1.2. Neural correlates of self-control Self-control processes, such as emotional control and attention, have been associated with prefrontal cortex functioning (Coan and Allen, 2004 and Goldberg, 2001). For example, individuals who suffer injuries to the prefrontal cortex often suffer from poorer emotional control (Fuster, 1989 and Harmon-Jones, 2004). Numerous studies have also found an association between left anterior brain activity and the behavioral activation system, and right anterior brain activity and the behavioral inhibition system. Moreover, this brain asymmetry is remarkably stable across time (Tomarken, Davidson, Wheeler, & Kinney, 1992). Harmon-Jones and Allen (1998) and Harmon-Jones and Sigelman (2001) have found that greater left prefrontal brain activity, in comparison to right prefrontal brain activity, is related to self-reported anger, a negatively valenced approach emotion. In addition, Harmon-Jones (2004) has found evidence of a direct link between a person’s behavioral approach orientation and anger responses. Persons with strong approach orientations are more likely to experience anger than are persons with weaker approach orientations. Not only is frontal activation asymmetry related to emotion, but it is also related to actual social behavior. For example, Fox et al. (1995) have found that frontal activation asymmetry was related to social competence in preschool children. D’Alfonso, van Honk, Hermans, Postma, and de Haan (2000) also found that college women were more likely to attend to angry faces when there was increased activation in the left prefrontal cortex. Conversely, the women were less attentive to angry faces with increased right frontal activation. 1.3. The present study The link between agreeableness and conscientiousness to both prefrontal cortical activity and emotional/behavioral regulation was examined. We were specifically interested in how individuals handle frustration that comes from receiving negative feedback. Some theorists may argue that self-control is almost a definitional part of agreeableness and conscientiousness. For example, one of the presumed facets of conscientiousness on the NEO is deliberation (i.e., considering the consequences before taking action; McCrae & Costa, 1996). Other researchers (e.g., Block, 1995), however, have pointed to deficiencies in the five-factor approach as a general perspective on personality structure. Despite the theoretical links between self-regulation and personality, there has been little research that directly examines these links, especially in terms of prefrontal cortex (PFC) functioning. If agreeableness and conscientiousness involve individual differences in executive attention and emotional regulation, there should be evidence of differences in prefrontal cortex functioning, especially when confronted with frustrating situations. This study was designed to answer two key empirical questions: (1) Are conscientiousness and agreeableness related to anger and aggressive responses; and (2) Do these personality traits moderate the link between anger and aggression? We specifically examined the role of PFC asymmetry and its association to agreeableness and conscientiousness. It was anticipated that individuals lower in conscientiousness and agreeableness will exhibit more left relative to right prefrontal brain asymmetry, will report more anger, and will aggress more, but only when they are confronted with a situation that requires greater self-control (i.e., when they receive negative feedback from another person). Second, we anticipated an important buffering influence associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. That is, it was expected that the known link between anger and aggression would only hold for persons low on agreeableness and conscientiousness. In other words, even if persons higher on agreeableness and conscientiousness experience the same or greater levels of anger than persons lower on these dimensions, the association between anger and aggression will be weaker for persons higher on agreeableness and conscientiousness because of their greater effortful control capabilities. This is not to say that other Big Five personality constructs, such as extraversion and neuroticism, are not important for understanding the anger–aggression link. Extraversion involves surgency, sociability, and social interest (Elphick, Halverson, & Marszal-Wisniewska, 1998). Indeed, Shiner (2000) has found that extroverted children are more competent in social situations than their less extroverted peers are. Thus, individuals higher in extraversion may be less likely to experience anger when confronted with negative feedback and may be less likely to aggress. Neuroticism, on the other hand, is related to a person’s emotional stability. Neurotic individuals are often easily frustrated. Indeed, they have a tendency to be hypersensitive to negative events, which may lead to greater negative affect when confronted with negative feedback from another person (Suls, Martin, & David, 1998).

In summary, when confronted with negative feedback, individuals who were higher on self-reported conscientiousness were more regulated in their expression of anger as assessed by both self-reports and prefrontal cortical asymmetry. Moreover, the link between anger and aversive drink choice held only for persons lower on conscientiousness in the negative feedback condition. These findings provide further support for the theoretical supposition that effortful control processes are linked to at least one of the major dimensions in the Big Five structural model of personality, namely conscientiousness. Moreover, this study provides the first evidence that neural substrates associated with anger control (i.e., the prefrontal cortex) are associated with conscientiousness. Even with its limitations, this study suggests that research on self-control and prefrontal asymmetry would profit from an approach that includes a more careful examination of Big Five personality traits believed to be associated with developmentally based effortful control processes.